There's a bit of an economic crisis going on, we're told. We need to work hard, save more and generally keep our shoulders to the wheel. Except for next April, when we're taking eight days off, and sod the IMF.

The hols will start on 22 April, which is Good Friday, when no doubt the nation will be at prayer. We will also, of course, contemplate the Easter message on the Monday, which is another bank holiday. Alas, we must then go back to work on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. But we are taking off Friday the 29th, when Prince William and Kate Middleton, bless 'em, will marry in Westminster Abbey. David Cameron, who wants us all to share the royal joy, has declared the day another bank holiday. And that will carry us forward nicely to Monday, 2 May, which is of course the spring bank holiday.

No doubt some killjoys will tut-tut about our notorious habit of bunking off at every opportunity. But hold hard: there are 10 regular bank holidays due in 2011 in England. France and Italy will have 11 days off, Germany 15 and Cyprus 17. Indeed, only one of our EU partners, the Netherlands, has fewer national holidays than England.

Besides, not everyone will be able to take advantage. The armed forces and emergency services will be at work or on call. Hospitals will work as normal, as will police officers, the security services, wedding caterers, the royals and columnists. Indeed, the only people certain to be idle on all those bank holidays are bankers, for which we can all be duly grateful.

Railing against it all

Long-suffering rail passengers have been given a scrap of good news: the government has sanctioned plans for 2,100 new carriages to ease chronic overcrowding. The inevitable bad news? They may not be in service until the end of the next decade.

The new rolling stock is part of a package of rail improvements over the next few years. They include upgrading of the vital north-south Thameslink line serving London and electrification of track in the north-west. But although the government is honouring schemes agreed by Labour, it is slowing down their implementation to save money.

Rail users, however, will start to pay from next year. The train operating companies have confirmed that fares will rise by an average of 6.2% next year, and that some commuters will pay an extra 12%. Ministers say that the inflation-busting increases, which are likely to continue for several years, are essential to help pay for rail improvements.

Spare us, oh Lord

Last week it was Lord Young, who declared that most people were better off in the recession. This week the award for Batty Baron goes to Lord Flight, another Tory, for suggesting that spending cuts would encourage "breeding" by the poor while the middle classes would be deterred by the withdrawal of universal child benefits.

Flight, no stranger to controversy in the past, was recently promoted to the Lords after helping the Conservatives to raise large sums of money. He initially claimed that his remarks had been taken out of context, but later felt obliged to withdraw them and make an unreserved apology to the Tories. Opposition leaders had a field day, loudly calling on David Cameron to kick Flight out of the party, and even out of the Lords.

The latter course of action is technically possible, as Flight has yet to take his place on the red leather benches. But being a Lord is a job for life, however daft you are.

On the one hand ...

Naval news (1): Harrier jump jets have taken off from a Royal Navy aircraft carrier for the last time. They left the deck of the Ark Royal in the North Sea last week on their last journey before being scrapped, to the dismay of many defence analysts and aviation buffs. The Ark Royal is going the same way, as a result of cuts decided earlier in the year.

Naval news (2): Nelson may not have been ambidextrous, but he did learn to write with his left hand after his right arm was shot away in 1797. Examples of his before-and-after writing are on display in London, as part of an intriguing exhibition celebrating hands in all kinds of contexts from finger painting to faith healing.

Before they went on display at the Wellcome Library, the were examined by a graphologist. Given that he had no idea who the writer was, or even that the letters were written by the same man, he did rather well. The right-handed man, he said, "will always give of his best" while the left-handed one "is assertive and not afraid to take responsibility". Best of all, he noted of the left-handed letter, "the past has left its mark with the writer".

Beavers in the sights

Beavers are being hunted in Scotland for the first time in 400 years. This time the rodents are being pursued not for their fur or meat, but to prevent them damaging the environment. Twenty or more of them have escaped from private collections, and are thought to be breeding.

Beavers arouse strong feelings in Scotland. Some are passionately in favour of their return from extinction as a native species. Others fear that they will despoil large areas of woodland and encourage flooding, with their gnawing down of young trees and building lodges or dams.

The animals now being sought will be trapped and given to the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, which has its own (controlled) colony of beavers in the Highlands.

Protecting the public

To the displeasure of some on the market-force wing of the Conservative party, the coalition government is planning tough new curbs on tobacco and alcohol sales. Andrew Lansley, the Tory health minister, confirmed that cigarette manufacturers could be obliged to wrap them in plain packaging, and there will be a ban on cut-price sales of alcohol.

Lansley, a generally pro-market Tory, said that sometimes people had to be protected from themselves. He was not keen on regulation, he said, but "we do need occasionally to intervene".

Former Conservative MP Ann Widdecombe, meanwhile, attacked another Lansley initiative, to encourage businesses to set aside time and space for female staff to breastfeed. "It is not appropriate for the state to micromanage our lives as they are doing," she said.

Bootiful Bernard

The name of Bernard Matthews, who has died aged 80, became all but synonymous with the British poultry industry in general, and the turkey sector in particular. He used to advertise his products on television, standing in front of his splendid Norfolk mansion and pronouncing his turkeys to be "bootiful".

A self-made man, Matthews started his business with just 20 eggs and a paraffin-fuelled incubator. He went on to transform the British national diet. It is difficult to remember now the luxury and expense of poultry meat in the 1950s, when Britons each consumed less than a kilo a year. Now it is 25 times that much.

Along the way, Matthews transformed the business of turkey rearing, building vast windowless breeding and fattening sheds. Fiercely resentful of criticism, he ignored the complaints of animal welfare campaigners, and went on marketing his ever more inventive products. We no longer just eat Bernard Matthews birds; we gobble down reclaimed and extruded turkey meat in the form of kievs, tikkas, burgers, nuggets and even something called turkistrami. The birds are no longer bootiful.